MAE is more like a family that welcomes everyone from all over the world. People help and support each other here.
— Hengye Yang
Graduate Student Culture in MAE
Who are we?
In the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, we are breaking stereotypes, expectations, and boundaries to solve the world's biggest problems.
We don’t just train engineers. We foster engineering leaders and entrepreneurs who will tackle some of the biggest challenges of our time - from engineering new and better manufacturing materials to developing sustainable and innovative solutions to climate change.
Meet Our Students and Alumni
Marysol Luna met Professor Christopher Hernandez at a SHIPE conference while she was an undergraduate at the University of Arizona. “I’m a first-generation student,” says Luna. “I didn’t even know what grad school was until that conference. He [Professor Hernandez] showed me that there were multiple options post-graduation.” She then joined Hernandez's lab to research micro-damage in trabecular bone.
Meet Our Students and Alumni
Ronald Heisser, Ph.D. in the Sibley School, focuses on igniting fuel-oxygen mixtures in small, soft combustion cylinders to make thin rubber membranes quickly pop upwards with a lot of energy - which could be used to raise a braille dot or power other small mechanisms.
Meet Our Students and Alumni
Sward’s research focuses on assessing electricity system impacts associated with transitioning to a clean energy economy. He is working to make policies like the Green New Deal or New York’s Clean Energy Standard a reality. The Green New Deal, introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is a congressional resolution that lays out a grand plan for tackling climate change. New York’s Clean Energy Standard aims to provide 70% of electricity via renewables by 2030.
Diversity and Inclusion in the Sibley School
In the Sibley School, we are dedicated to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for our students, faculty, and staff. In the College of Engineering and the Sibley School, we strive to live out Ezra Cornell’s vision of “any person, any study.”
As Dean Archer states, "we know that there is great strength in diversity and great reward in asking questions nobody has asked before. We honor our past and at the same time understand the need to do new things in new ways. Ezra Cornell wanted to break away from the educational norms of the past. In that same spirit, Cornell Engineering continues to break new ground in what we study and in how we study it."
Hear more about our community from those that know it best - our students, alumni, and faculty.
Sibley Student News
News
Akane Wakai, Sibley Ph.D. Student, wins NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Grant
Akane Wakai, a Ph.D. student working in Assistant Professor Atieh Moridi’s group, recently won a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Grant. She will be working on 3D printing of high entropy... Read more about Akane Wakai, Sibley Ph.D. Student, wins NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Grant
News
Sibley Ph.D. won the FUSION Best Student Paper Award
Keith LeGrand, Ph.D. student working in Professor Silvia Ferrari's group, was awarded the Fusion 2020 Best Paper Award for his paper on exploiting bounded sensor field-of-view geometry in tracking and... Read more about Sibley Ph.D. won the FUSION Best Student Paper Award
Highlights of the Student Experience
Flexibility
Graduate fields cross traditional college and department boundaries and afford a graduate student maximum flexibility in designing a program represented by faculty from virtually any discipline on campus.
Grad Student Community
Prospective graduate students are drawn to the Sibley School by the close community of multi-cultural and diverse graduate students. Students feel as though they are part of an inclusive community that supports one another throughout the Ph.D. process.
1st Semester Fellowship
Students do not choose a Ph.D. advisor before applying. Matriculated students are afforded the opportunity to interact with a number of faculty in seeking a good student-advisor match within the first semester.
5 Years of Funding
We offer five years of funding to all admitted Ph.D. students (contingent upon maintaining good academic standing).
Location
Cornell is located in the beautiful New York Finger Lakes region. Ithaca has been rated one of the top 25 best small cities in America due to the abundance of outdoor activities, natural beauty, and thriving restaurant and brewery scene. Ithaca is also within 6 hours of New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.
Cornell MAE has state-of-the-art research facilities, especially in robotics, and a multicultural and international group of students and researchers. The graduate students support each other very well.
— Alap Kshirsagar